Holywell Bowling Green on St Cross Road can been seen at the bottom of this extract (right) from Loggan's bird's eye view of Oxford in 1675. The view is from the north, with Holywell Street going off to the right and Longwall Street running from the Gallows Bastion up to the top.
The map extract below dated 1751 (this time with north at the top) shows Holywell Bowling Green between the houses at the north-east end of Holywell Street and “A Foot way into the Parks” that roughly follows the line of the present Jowett Walk. Magdalen College's own bowling green is also shown in its Grove.
In the seventeenth century colleges tried to stop undergraduates from frequenting this bowling green, and at some point between 1578 and the early 1630s Magdalen created its own bowling green in its Grove (described here in Oxoniensia). It was probably incorporated into the deer park in the early nineteenth century.
On 16 April 1757 Jackson's Oxford Journal advertised the sale of an estate held by lease under Merton College comprising a mansion house, and a “Messuage or Tenement; a good and well accustomed Bowling Green; two Cottages and three Commons in Holywell Meadow”. On 29 March 1760 it was advertised again.
On 8 December 1759 it reported on a performance the previous day by Thomas Johnson “in the Bowling Green at the Bottom of Holiwell” which included riding one horse three times round the Green in full gallop standing upright on the saddle.
James Woodforde records in his diary for 26 June 1761 that he was “At Bowles in Holiwell Green” with seven college friends; and again on 3 and 11 July that year he was “At Bowles in Holiwell lower Green”.
The house at 1 Holywell Street, now in the occupation of Dr Nicholls, was advertised for sale again on 15 December 1765 together with the bowling green, and with the bowling green house on 19 April 1766.
The 1772 Survey of Oxford lists Dr Vansittart (who also had a house with a frontage of over 12 yards in St Cross Road) as holding the bowling green, which had a frontage of exactly 53 yards. This is presumably Robert Vansittart (1728–1789), Regius Professor of Civil Law and member of the Hellfire Club.
Mention of the bowling green at Holywell then disappears, and the 1876 Streetplan of Oxford shows that its site had been incorporated into the garden of 1 Holywell Street.